Prada further stated that only under the presidency of Uribe which “[fought] equally against paramilitaries, rebels, drug traffickers, and those who wanted to damage our country… did we have notions of living in peace.”

While being highly critical about “the form of the talks,” the party remained vague about whether it would be taking part in talks with government peace negotiator Humberto de la Calle, who is doing a round of talks with all parties in Colombia’s congress.

De la Calle had explicitly issued an invitation to the Democratic Center party to be a part of the individual meetings. According to De la Calle, the goal of the private conversations is to provide each party involvement in the peace talks with a chance for individual input.

“We need to do this from here,” Gaviria told his colleagues in the Senate on Tuesday.

“For example, if he asks us if we want peace at any price, we will reply: better not. Peace, respecting the liberal democratic system and the rights of the Colombian people, is welcome,” said Gaviria.

The Senator additionally said that if De la Calle were to meet with the party, he could expect “these strong responses: no to peace at any cost; no to renouncing the legitimate use of force by the State; no to surrendering and capitulation; no to dialogue just for dialogue and irresponsible pacifism; no to the conservative and cowardly language of terror.”

Uribe formed the Democratic Center party in 2013 to independently be able to take part in elections held in March, May and June this year. The former president, the former boss and ally of Santos when he was Defense Minister, has increasingly moved away from his successor’s policies.

Especially leading up to the presidential elections of which DC candidate Oscar Ivan Zuluaga won the first round, Colombian politics became polarized between a “Santista” camp in favor of the ongoing peace talks, and an “Uribista” camp that sought stricter conditions on rebel group FARC for the talks to be legitimate.

The FARC, formed from a few dozen Marxist peasant rebels in 1964, is Latin America’s largest and oldest-living rebel group. For decades the group financed its revolt with drug trafficking and kidnapping. Political violence in Colombia has left at least 220,000 dead, according to official figures. Some 6 million Colombians are considered victims of this conflict.

Sources

Press releases (Democratic Center)

Santos ‘has surrendered most of Colombia’ to FARC: Conservative opposition was last modified: February 26th, 2015 by David Wing